Odd woman out

The setting is familiar. At one time or another, you’ve been into this kind of government office perhaps to get a permit or complain about something. It looks just like any government office – nondescript. Desks, chairs, a filing cabinet, typewriters, shelves, a telephone, piles of papers, attendance cards for timing in – all just as nondescript.

This is the setting of Malou Jacob’s play, Anatomiya ng Korupsiyon, Tanghalang Pilipino’s first offering on its new season at the CCP Little Theater.

The time is the early 1980s before the first EDSA revolution. On the wall is a large portrait of Ferdinand and Imelda. The office is that of the defunct Family Court.

Enter the occupants of the premises. Charing (Peewee O’ Hara), a secretary, a sort of a house mother. The janitor, Loret (Michael Ian Lomongo). Another secretary, mousy bespectacled Nita (Olga Natividad). Senior attorneys Sammy (Luz Ortiz) and Ric (Alan Paule), looking distinguished in their suits. A third secretary, flashy dresser Virgie (Angeli Bayani). Clerk Bok (Paolo O’ Hara; alternate: RJ Leyran). The new addition to the office, Attorney Cely (Irma Adlawan-Marasigan). And the big boss, the Judge (Tito Tesoro). All seemingly respectable government functionaries, civil servants busy working at their respective jobs in this office in the justice department until Ms. Jacob smashes your rose-tinted eyeglasses and exposes them to be a swarm of vermin out to fleece the citizens who flock to their office to seek justice – except Cely, the round peg in the square hole. She is not even one with them in patronizing the Muslim, Abdul, and the gay food vendor, Mang Joe (Paolo Rodriguez; alternate: Gary Lim).

This is not Cely’s first employment. She has worked in other agencies before with little satisfaction. Now, she has landed this position in the justice system only to find herself enmeshed in a web of corruption. Two cases are tossed on her lap by her senior colleagues on her first day on the job – one plea for support, the other a case for dissolution of a conjugal partnership (Len Ag. Santos-Siasoco/ Teresa Jamias, Lamberto de Jesus, Ony de Leon, George de Jesus). Cely disposes of these cases justly and speedily but her way runs afoul of the system in the Family Court. Her officemates have not made money in these transactions – on the sly, naturally – and they are disgruntled no end.

A messenger (McDonnel Bolaños) who has come to get Cely’s decision is made to wait because the copy of her report is missing and he is given the run-around by the secretaries. At one point, Sammy tells her to get by in the office, she needs to be a "team-player," meaning to say that she has to be corrupt along with the rest. When she appeals to the judge, he advises her to keep cool, to play the game with her compañeros.

As if the problems in the work place were not enough, her mother keeps calling her up to ask for apples, oranges, etc. Then all of a sudden, the old lady has to be rushed to the hospital. More bills. The problems keep piling up. And the greater her needs, the stronger the temptation to give up her scruples and be corrupted.

When Christmas comes around, Cely’s loneliness is intensified. Her compañeros deliver their coup de grace. They threaten to file administrative charges against her for accepting a bribe. How’s that for irony?

But of course, they will not inflict this dishonor on her person if she agrees to be a team-player like the rest. Anatomiya ng Korupsiyon concludes with Cely having to make a choice: to be or not to be a scumbag.

Ms. Jacob piles up irony upon irony to make her satire on the corruption in Pinoy society a blast. Deft direction by Dennis Marasigan makes certain that the seriousness of the playwright’s intention is projected clearly and not obscured by the tawdry humor of the play. The irony that injustice and corruption prevail even in courts of law cannot be missed by the audience.

The depiction of the main character, however, is problematic. She is a victim, to be sure, and deserves sympathy. But if she is consumed with self-pity or is a self-righteous ass, she can’t be sympathetic. This is an issue that has to be contended with.

The Family Court in the play is a microcosm of the entire country. Corruption is a hydra that rears its ugly multiple heads in all levels of Pinoy society, from the slums to the seats of power. All are perpetrators of corruption – the voter who sells his ballot and the politician who buys it, the student who cheats and the incompetent teacher, the storeowner who overprices his goods and the shoplifter, the lustful priest and object of his passion who refuses to denounce her oppressor, etc. They have even corrupted the Golden Rule, "Do unto others what you would have them do unto you" into the cynical "Do it to them before they do it to you!"

The country of the corrupt has even developed its own unique vocabulary in the vernacular slang. Payola, lagay, tong, datung, mayroon ba tayo diyan, akong bahala diyan, puwede bang ayusin na lang, basta may padrino, ayos, baka naman puwedeng makalusot, etc. – all these expressions articulated with a meaningful glint in the eye.

Is there no hope for the Filipinos mired in a culture of corruption? We can learn from Voltaire and cultivate our own garden; from Emerson, self-reliance; from Thoreau, individualism; from Gandhi, non-violence; and from Ninoy Aquino, trust in the Filipino because he is worth dying for.

The country needs a charismatic, inspired and inspiring leader who can lead by example. He needs to strengthen the education of our children. Says Cicero: "What greater gift can we offer the Republic than to teach and instruct our youth?"

If Anatomiya ng Korupsiyon fails in its design, it is because it doesn’t tell us anything that we don’t already know. Its subject needs to shock us to the very roots of our being. The Theater of the Absurd can do just that, like Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a satire on conformity in the modern world. What if the Family Court is a nest of smelly, slimy vermin like gigantic rats?

In the meantime, the angels weep as hell is filling up to overflowing with corrupt Pinoys. "Wala na bang bakante, Taning? Baka naman may paraan – ’Yung may air conditioning, ha? Akong bahala sa ’yo, p’re!" He is an attorney. His Pareng Taning roars with Mephistophelian laughter.

The devil, they say, is an insomniac: he never sleeps.

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